Reviews:Lead by a married couple
from Philadelphia, Northern Valentine glides through definitive icy spells
that are remarkably created by guitars and no post-production. Having already
set a mood by placing a photo from Iceland on the album cover, Amy and
Robert (along with two other guitarists and a bassist) easily evoke any
kind of wintry, arctic imagery. These are also some of the most haunting
ambient sounds put to tape, some of which play like the soundtrack for
a crumbling and crashing ice sheet.~ Kenyon Hopkin, Advance
Copy

The booklet for The Distance
Brings Us Closer is full of icy blue shots of horizons with white clouded
skies & orange tinted sunsets, a souvenir from the band's visit to
Iceland last year; & most of the sounds found within it can be described
just like that, with a frozen beauty emanating from the speakers as one
catches the wind of a glacial-paced snail over a snowed-in neach a few
feet from your feet as the lazy sun barely lights the world around you
to reveal a blue that can remind you of being deep into the ocean except
you're in the surface drowning in oxygen yet leaving breathlessly over
the gourgeousness of such conditions. The husband & wife tag
team plus others decided to field record their latest hike in soundscapes
with a stereo machine, live in the studio with barely a theme discussed
among the practitioners to develop the five slowly evolving pieces that
make up The Distance, but making everything being alive even if we're talking
about atmospheric rock that flows through like a cool arctic draft in the
middle on the most demanding dry-as-shit desert summer; Northern Valentine
keeps everything in sight, with eyes on their goal & focused on their
telepathic improvisational skills, presenting tracks that hardly overstay
their welcome like many a droning record does, & refuse to become air-conditioning
wallpaper for the listeners by giving us enough personality to their formless,
breezy sounds to make them stand out from so many instrumental bands that
fight over who to bore next. Northern Valentine don't bother even
showing up to the ring, they rather stay where they are & let their
wintery tones connect them to the nature of it all, inviting listeners
to their igloo; sharing aesthetically some with bands such as Windy &
Carl, Labradford, & others from the Kranky stable, The Distance presents
us a band who freshly displays a way of making instrumental music.~ Marcos Hassan, Bad Acid

Hailing from Philadelphia,
Northern Valentine is a band built around the core of husband and wife
duo Robert (guitar) & Amy Brown (violin, keyboard). Inviting two guitarists
(Jeffery Bumiller and Ben Fleury-Steiner) and a bassist (Marc Carazo) into
the fore, the band adds depth to their ambient post-rock sound which follows
the same aesthetics as Windy&Carl, Netherworld and Biosphere.Like drifting in a bulbous
cloud through a unpopulated, cotton-wool metropolis, Northern Valentine
score the soundtrack to an imaginary Arctic dusk, an image which is perfectly
conveyed by the album art. Across the 5 pieces, elongated string melodies
glide and evaporate in spectral fashion as crisply effervescent tones occasionally
glisten within the drone laden expanse. Themes of glacial isolation, depressive
darkness and ominous paranoia fuse delicately with a delicate romanticism
and the silver lining of optimism in a soundscape that floats between dense
and minimalist textures.Opener ‘Born Yesterday’
is a cinemascope manifestation of ethereal post-ambient music. Like a lingering
nature shot in a Haneke or Coen Brothers film that is riddled with a deep,
emotive undertone, it grips ones mindset through its subtle use of omnipotent
drones and deeply melancholic tone. The album then starts to slowly move
into a regressive lull, especially on the solitary introspection of ‘Dimanche’
which churns subtly with a windswept forlornness. Sounding like The Caretaker
meets The Necks played at 16rpm in the banquet hall of the submerged Titanic,
the delicious sub-aqua, minimalist piano waltz of ‘Escaping Light’ adds
a much anticipated glow to proceedings as glistening melodic droplets lace
a backdrop of warmly buoyant drone. The closer ‘Already Gone’ is the most
post-rockish of the 5 tracks as stretched violin and guitar melodies meander
around each other in ghostly fashion, all-the-while exuding that reflective
and melancholic timbre that poignant post-rock is all about as melodic
arcs resonate with compassionate fervor over a timeless soundscape of drifting
sonic spacedust.Recorded live using a stereo
field recorder and without any post-production or overdubbing, the five-piece
improvised off of each other around planned themes. Thusly, such a process
has led to a natural and spacious soundstage that wrings with an all important
warmth. With all the pieces melding into each other to form an engrossing
45 minute dreamscape, the emotive cinematic expanse of ‘The Distance Brings
Us Closer’ will have you cloud surfing for many enjoyable hours to come.~ Ray Miri, experimusic

This is lovely. The cover
features photos taken by the couple behind the band, Robert and Amy Brown
(guitar, and violin and keyboards respectively), on tour in Iceland in
June 2008 – that would be just before the Icelandic economy evaporated
like steam from a geyser, then - and the wide open spaces, airiness
and atmosphere of the pictures they’ve used sums up the mood of the album
exquisitely.A Philadelphia, USA, based
duo, they are joined here by two additional guitarists and a bassist, all
of whom improvised together in the studio around various themes to create
the album. The title, which I fretted at first might be suggesting that
the band had mailed various recordings to one another which were subsequently
sewn together digitally, rather references the trip to Iceland, and the
songs throughout are clearly inspired by this. The lengthy (15 minute)
opener ‘Born Yesterday’ is glacial in its movement; fans of Windy and Carl
and Aarktika will smile knowingly and close their eyelids in satisfaction
are the soothing, intense ambience of the sound. ‘Dies Solis’ ticks
and burbles along like a slow train crossing a snowfield, while ‘Dimanche’
builds to a crescendo like a fish-gutting factory waiting for the fleet
to arrive. The stand-out for me though is ‘Already Gone’, with it’s solitary
keyboard “plink” lending inevitable references to Pink Floyd’s ‘Echoes’.This is minimalist ambience
at its best. Heartfelt, soulful & affecting, like gazing at a scrapbook
of memories. The ever-reliable Silber Records are to be commended for bringing
us this – repay the favour by investing in a copy, since downloads won’t
help guarantee there'll be more to follow.~ Phil McMullen, Terrascope
online

Five tracks make up The Distance
Brings Us Closer and each of them take a similar format. These are soundscapes,
great glacial swathes of low frequency keyboard washes and intermittent
guitar and percussion interventions. The effect is of a series of sound
collages, notably lacking in some of the overindulgence that often spoils
the intended effects of this type of experimentalism, and the results are,
over the forty or so minutes, some of the most effective pieces of aural
sculpture I might've heard since the first Sígur Ros album.Northern Valentine is very
far from novice in this field though; the members have been recording together
in various forms for over a decade, based around husband and wife team
Robert and Amy Brown, and The Distance Brings Us Closer is their seventh
album. Working as a five piece here (adding to the aesthetics here are
Jeffery Bullimer, Marc Carazo and Ben Fleury-Steiner) and eschewing a studio
style in favour of a more immediate "live in the studio" approach, the
quintet go some way towards pushing the boundaries of post-rock beyond
metallic repetition and on to some areas which I hesitate to describe as
ambient. There's simply too much backbone in Northern Valentine's work
for The Distance Brings Us Closer to find itself merely labelled as Muzak.I need to admit that I don't
very often hear full albums of this type of soundscaping. Those I do hear
often slide into either chaotic atonality or folk based whimsy, and Northern
Valentine do neither of these. There aren't any sudden feedback solos or
overbearing mood-shattering drumming going on here: The Distance Brings
Us Closer is a tightly-scored piece each of whose five parts properly cohere.
There isn't as much as a spare hi-hat tap on display, and if Northern Valentine
really are improvising, then their decade of practise has worked any of
the more effusive traits out of their composition.Varying between the abrasiveness
of third track "Dimanche" and the sonorous glissandos of "Escaping Light"
which, while it incorporates some more identifiable post-rock touches,
these are sublimated beneath the vastness of the entire Northern Valentine
armoury. Great swathes of white noise and guitar hydraulics, blizzards
of reverberating electronics and a refusal to undercut the strength of
this music by adding more populist elements make for a challenging and
rewarding listen. Play it quietly, 90% of The Distance Brings Us Closer
exists beneath the surface.~ Jon Gordon, Delusions
of Adequacy

Northern Valentine is the
husband and wife duo consisting of Robert Brown and Amy Brown. Unlike most
other husband and wife duos, however, these folks do not create cutesy
pop music. The Distance Brings Us Closer presents five tracks of atmospheric
drone. Recorded live in the studio with no post-production or overdubs,
this is definitely an album that will create a mood. Joining the Browns
on these recordings were Jeffrey Bumiller (Doctor Scientist, Lunch With
Beardo), Marc Carazo, and Ben Fleury-Steiner (Light of Shipwreck). Even
though traditional instruments like guitars and basses were used in these
recordings, you won't hear any traditional or obviously familiar sounds.
Everything has been heavily treated and/or drenched in effects to the point
of becoming hypnotic noise. The folks at Silber seem to be one of the main
sources in the United States for this style of music and, as such, seem
to unearth some of the best of the best. Intriguing stuff, rather heady
and elusive...~ Babysue

Northern Valentine’s The
Distance Brings Us Closer uses a familiar ultimate atmospheric minimalist
drone aesthetic along the lines of Stars of the Lid to achieve its goal,
but I can’t say that I mind as long as the results go this far into the
eerie depths of the Atlantic Sea. The always-reliable Silber label that
put this disc out claims that drone, love, honesty and sound are the key
words to describe what they do and I am tempted to use the very same words
to describe this disc. This husband and wife duo is apparently from Philadelphia,
but judging by the sound this was probably recorded with the imaginary
view of a never-ending horizon or the sea at dawn in mind.~ Mats Gustafson, The Broken
Face

Like the gorgeous, frozen
landscape photographs (from their recent Icelandic tour) that adorn the
cover of this Philadelphia husband-wife duo’s seventh album, Amy and Robert
Brown’s music (supplemented by bass and two additional guitarists) creates
an expansive atmosphere of loneliness. Like Stars of The Lid, Windy &
Carl, and label mates, Aarktica, Northern Valentine’s music delivers a
sense of floating in space or a communion with nature where the listener
is enveloped in clouds of billowing sonics. The listener’s imagination
can run wild creating images to accompany this ambient soundtrack and opener,
“Born Yesterday” seems to capture the awe and mystery of an infant floating
inside its mother’s amniotic fluid.The heavily treated trio
of guitars imbues “Dimanche” with a frightful, almost industrialized aura,
which like much of the album could easily serve as a post-modern soundtrack
to David Lynch’s underground classic, Eraserhead. The syncopated sonar
beeps hovering in the background of “Escaping Light” add a Floydian touch,
ca. “Echoes,” while Amy’s extemporaneous piano tinkling adds an air of
haunting dread. The set ends with the melancholic-yet-hopeful, “Already
Gone” that perhaps signifies that the titular couple in the album’s title
have resigned themselves to the distances that physically keep them apart,
yet their love strengthens their relationship and does, indeed, bring them
closer. In sum, an awesomely hypnotic listening experience. 9/10~ Jeff Penczak, Foxy Digitalis

Chilly spacious distance
with random muted industrial movements in dense fog. Full and shrouded
in supernatural mystery. Cold empathic visions of the beginnings and endings
of the universe. Subtly warm reassurances of far away factories humming
with artificial life. Ice as far as the eye can see, the wind murmurs like
ghosts.~ George Parsons, Dream
Magazine

Over here in the UK Northern
Valentine has been picked up for distribution by Cold Spring Records, a
low key yet superior outlet for doom, drone, industrial and noise music.
The cult following behind Cold Spring will no doubt bring attention to
the group that may have otherwise been lost, and deserving they are of
this attention too!Consisting of Philadelphia
couple Robert & Amy Brown, Northern Valentine explores soundscapes
and ambient, otherworldly drones with minimal instruments (guitar, keyboard
and on occasion Violin).The first of these new recordings
(‘Born Yesterday’) on ‘The Distance Brings us Closer’ is class A prime
cut ambience, an icy and echoed piece that glides effortlessly like Phlegyas
might on the river Styx and at fifteen minutes long, the group have more
than enough time to muse over and caress every subtle utterance from the
track for the listener to enjoy.‘Dies Solis’ follows in
a similar vein, with a minimal and haunting tone, both distant and meditative,
that takes full power of the senses when listened to, working on a hypnotic
level that would have the six minutes of transmission seem to last merely
thirty seconds.Likewise with ‘Escaping
Light’ that while still as ambient and hypnotic as its predecessors carries
and air of foreboding and surrealism heightened when via the haunting piano
piece that slowly sneaks its way into the mix.Silber once again are the
unsung heroes of drone and ambience, taking up the mantle for these genres
by adding another strong and experienced group to their roster, ‘The Distance
Brings us Closer’ is going to be a palpable hit for drone fans everywhere.~ Michael Byrne, Left Hip

Hailing from Philadelphia
(USA) Northern Valentine is the brainchild of Robert & Amy Brown (who
are married and partners in crime for this project). Armed with guitar,
violin and keyboards they compose what has been called ‘post rocking ambient
music’. I totally agree for the ambient part, which is for sure worthy
of examination. While some of their compositions can move on the edge of
experimental (cf. “Escaping Light”) the main tracks are definitely covering
a wide ambient fields filled with icy tones. The guitar play is quite interesting
for the cool effects on top of it and comes to reinforce and enlarge the
ambient sonority of this composition. Northern Valentine has this little
original touch in composing ambient music and that’s for sure what I like
here! The “Dimanche”-cut is a real outstanding piece in an open-minded
ambient style. After several albums on Baresongs Music this project now
joined Silber Records and this debut-album on their new label is a fascinating
piece and a real good surprise!~ Side-Line

And Their Refinement of the
Decline stands as the current high watermark in ambient/drone music as
far as I’m concerned. What Stars of the Lid did on that album, more so
even when compared to their past work, was conquer the most valid criticism
of the genre. Often drone can become static and stagnant, even claustrophobic,
but with Their Refinement, Stars of the Lid showed that ambient/drone can
contain constant subtle movement and that with said movement comes a tremendous
amount of expression; a soundscape so bleak that it’s entirely beautiful
at the same time. Essentially, Their Refinement is a successful synthesis
of form and expression.So, approaching The Distance
Brings Us Closer was a conscious decision to establish both where the expression
lies and how it’s carried out. The form doesn’t make any great leaps outside
of the established genre. Comparisons can be made easily to other bands
like Hammock or Windy & Carl, but really only on a track by track basis,
as the whole of the album is something different. The rolling and sweeping
movement of Their Refinement is not here, but the album is not static either.
The expression of Their Refinement is that of rumination, almost a travelling
through the landscape of memory and regret, times long gone, but The Distance
it’s something more immediate, something in the present, distance itself
perhaps, both a presence and an absence. At the forefront of each track
is the droning guitar work - all consuming, demanding the listener's attention
- but behind it, at all times, there’s something bubbling and changing
and brewing.There are five tracks on
the album, but it’s still a nice forty five-minute piece. Often, the real
gem of each track is buried deep within it. There’s a real patience involved;
waiting out the distance hoping it will bring us closer. Behind certain
tracks there are subtle hints of tribalism, as if Grails were recording
in the studio next door, and the walls didn’t quite stop the bleed through.
It never fully develops, but it’s often there. “Born Yesterday” is the
opening track and the longest at just over fifteen minutes, and just about
halfway through this swirling miasma of guitar, the tiny clear voice of
chimes cuts through. Similarly, the track “Escaping Light” has what sounds
like processed flute work in the beginning and the tiniest hint of hand
drums throughout. But, “Escaping Light” does a lot more too and is probably
the track that stands out the most as far as establishing a Northern Valentine
sound. Towards the middle of the six minutes piano keys starts fluttering
through the drone and an upright bass plods through the background shadows
as well.If Northern Valentine set
out to express the emotions felt in the face of distance, the anxiety,
the helplessness, the way it is a giant burden made out of nothing, then
I’d say they succeeded. The album is both immediate and elusive at once.
It requires both patience and the ability to feel, and it can hold its
own amongst the comparisons it’s likely to draw.~ Michael Lutomski, The
Silent Ballet

Thanks to bands such as Godspeed
You! Black Emperor, Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky, A Silver Mt. Zion and
especially Sigur Rós the post-rock genre has grown up in the last
few years. With every new album these bands reached for a higher level,
and thanks too that the full level of this genre is now much higher than
several years ago. The consequence of this change is that other bands also
need to release better music. That means: if they want to follow these
post-rock giants. Northern Valentine from Pennsylvania is one of those
bands. The band, in which the married couple Robert and Amy Brown are the
main characters, is now releasing its new album The distance brings us
closer. At this album we hear post-rock in combination with ambient. You
can compare this music with the music of Sigur Rós, but without
the angelical singing and the energy that gives every Sigur Rós
album a special complexion. Northern Valentine is not doing much more than
playing nature like keyboard sounds, repeating soundscapes and a few guitar
and violin chords. Although it would not be honest to say this is terrible
music, it’s also not honest to say Northern Valentine is doing something
very special over here. Even more, I think it’s right to say that, thanks
too the lack of vocals, tension and creativity, this album is a little
bit boring. That’s a shame, because listening to The distance brings us
closer it does sounds like this band could do a lot more. If only Robert
and Amy would experiment more, than this album could have been much better.~ Gothtronic

Ambient rock group Northern
Valentine draws similar inspiration as many of the emerging acts in the
"glacial ambient" scene, most specifically Netherworld, but besides using
a more guitar-oriented sound, they differ with their contemporaries by
taking a more emotionally ambiguous approach to their subject matter. Where
recent albums by the likes of Rapoon and Netherworld on the Glacial Movements
label focus primarily on arctic imagery as a metaphor for peace, tranquility
and timelessness, taking comfort in the emptiness and creating a similar
sense of quiet vastness in their music, Northern Valentine's work is much
more emotionally immediate; the emptiness is tranquil, but it's also lonely,
and that comes through especially on this album's opening track, "Born
Yesterday," with its rich, achingly cold guitar textures conjuring up scenes
of icy windswept plateaus, stunning vistas that wouldn't seem nearly so
stark if you had someone there to share them with you. "Dies Solis" is
darker still, the emptiness of the landscape lending itself toward brooding
and internal tension, a hint of nervousness and self-criticism buzzing
beneath the mournful guitar drones. "Dimanche" is more ambient in the classical
sense in that it soothes tension rather than exacerbating it, the soft
echoing percussive sounds drifting off into the fuzzy tidal drones, and
"Escaping Light," despite its title's evocation of the last lonely sunset
before a long arctic winter, is actually a little playful, with pleasantly
atonal pianos emerging occasionally from the sleepy guitar textures. "Already
Gone" continues this trend, its tones warmer than any of its predecessors,
the outer calm of the music itself seemingly indicating the inner calm
that comes with accepting the loneliness of one's present situation. Likely
to appeal to fans of both ambient acts like Bass Communion, Lull, and Oophoi
and such instrumental rock acts as Stars of the Lid, Windy and Carl, and
Third Eye Foundation, this album is cold but powerful, its subtle snowy
soundscapes a portal to surprisingly rich emotional territory.~ Matthew Johnson, Grave
Concerns

Married duo Robert and Amy
Brown comprise the hypnotic drone act Northern Valentine. The two of them
have designed a mesmerizing work of ambient music with The Distance Brings
Us Closer Together, a beautiful but haunting epic reminiscent of Biosphere's
polar drone adventures. Surprisingly, no overdubs or post-production were
involved in the record's creation, leaving only guitar, violin, keyboards,
and bass. Yet, these droning, wistful passages of sound take you to a personal
and isolated spot, something you might expect out of a GYBE! record.The mournful resonance of
"Born Yesterday" introduces Northern Valentine's gradual opus, inevitably
followed by the pessimistic "Dies Solid," which leaves the listener slightly
unsettled by way of its hollow drone. This is peaceful music meant for
dark rooms, although in all its calm it still makes a strong emotional
impact. Also splendidly intense is "Escaping Light," which adds a sporadic
bassline and some eerie keys to its slow-moving core. Finally, the psychedelic
guitar swirls of "Already Gone" make for a deeply hypnotic finale to the
record, enveloping the listener in a mellow bliss until it slowly fades
out. As the disc reaches its end, a notion flutters into consciousness
and makes itself heard: The Distance is an absolutely stunning work of
drone music.~ Matt Shimmer, Indieville

Following a series of CD-R
releases beginning in 2006, the husband and wife team of Robert and Amy
Brown put out their first formal album release via Silber Records in late
2008, The Distance Brings Us Closer, also featuring guest performer Ben
Fleury-Steiner. Northern Valentine's music comes from a now very familiar
space -- open-ended electronic and guitar textures pitched halfway between
contemplative ambience and understated melodies, and to say that The Distance
Brings Us Closer would appeal to fans of nearly anything on Kranky Records,
for instance, would be an understatement. But if Northern Valentine works
in known ground at this point, they still do so with an atmospheric power
and grace. Perhaps their strongest knack is for how well they gently disguise
the core hooks without letting them get lost completely -- the cyclical
rise and fall of the main melody in "Born Yesterday," shimmers through
layers of echo and background texture, might be the most breathtaking moment
on the album. Other moments like the sudden appearance of a clear piano
part on "Dimanche" cutting through the meditative flow of the song further
demonstrate the group's abilities. If Northern Valentine are still working
towards finding their best sound, they have strong bases to build on.~ Ned Raggett, All Music
Guide

Didn't know they could say
"post rock" in Philly but this husband/wife duo bring the noise on this
5 song record. "Dies Solis" would scare me if I was listening to it in
a dark room with the lights off. Cover photos are from their tour
of Iceland in 2008. Always interested to hear more from the always underrated
Silber Records label.~ Tim Hinely, Dagger

It’s just amazing what a
load of reverb, chorus and delay can do for an album. In some respects
the whole drone/ambient genre is an exercise in finding good excuses to
drench the listener with these effects, these invocations of space. The
Distance Brings Us Closer is a classic example of this approach.Northern Valentine is a
five piece US outfit and they deploy keyboards, violin, bass and a battery
of electric guitars in their quest to drown the listener’s ears in hazy
oceans of sound. Often it’s quite difficult to distinguish the instruments
as they meld into a cohesive field of drones.Sometimes more biting elements
come to the fore, but with this album the whole is definitely greater than
the sum of the instrumental parts. The result is that this music washes
over you; it’s very hard not to let it carry you into different moods,
thoughts or spaces.The real question I ask
with this sort of music is – does it take us anywhere? Do I feel that I’ve
been moved, shifted, transformed? Or have we just spent 45 minutes chasing
our tails?Obviously this kind of drone/ambient
music is not intended for the sort of intense listening focus that we would
reserve for Shostakovich or Deathspell Omega; but by the same token I feel
that ambient music needs to express some feeling or thought, it needs to
invoke some kind of raw material for the imagination to work with.Certainly the five tracks
have some interesting motifs, and given that the performances are largely
improvised the level of cohesion is impressive. The different elements
drift across one another almost subliminally, so that if your ear catches
onto one element you can quickly find yourself opening down myriad paths.And yet at the same time
it can all get a little too circuitous for my ears. The music does succeed
in conjuring up misty and cold landscapes, yet it’s hard not to feel that
the proceedings are a little empty.Perhaps the atmosphere of
the mountains that The Distance Makes Us Closer evokes is a little too
thin for this reviewer, but it feels to me a bit like the musicians are
playing on autopilot, like they’re not really emotionally invested in the
performance. I just don’t have much of a response; like the icy ocean cover
photograph I am left a little too cold by this music for my liking.That isn’t to say that this
is an unenjoyable recording, however. It certainly succeeds in conjuring
a spirit of mystery and the music is both well executed and very cleanly
produced. Somehow it seems a little incomplete or perhaps just too absent
as a performance, and ultimately the album seems to gently lose its way
into diffusion.I actually find myself wishing
I liked this music more than I do, because the elements are all there and
it’s in various respects a fine example of ambient/drone music. Other ears
might find this to be a good auditory home but for me it just doesn’t quite
have the effect that seems intended.~ Henry Lauer, Heathen Harvest

Northern Valentine are husband
and wife Brown from Philadelpia, who have been making music since 1997.
Previous albums were released on, amongst others, Gears Of Sand, but recently
there
has also been a number of albums on Silber Records. Earlier this month
we reviewed the three-way project "Clear Field". And I can now clearly
hear the elements that Northern Valentine brought to that collaboration.
"The Distance Brings Us Closer" is their new album and was already announced
as minimalist ambient at its best. And minimalist it is indeed...Northern Valentine bring
us five tracks and 45 minutes of soothing drones, ambient and lots of guitar
feedback. I must have listened to this album some five times now this week...
and I just can't get a grip on it. "Born Yesterday" opens the album with
15 minutes of calmy waxing and waning feedback, supported by muted guitar
strumming and synths. It is this calm that I find my attention wander off
in other directions after a few minutes. The album certainly has its moments
and a track like "Dies Solis" is pleasantly hypnotising. Still, much of
the sound does little more than cause some ripples at the surface. It's
not that the sound is monotonous, there's a lot going on, and a track like
"Escaping Light" has traces of loungy jazz with some double bass and piano
in the background. But at the end I'm left with a "neither fish nor fowl"
feeling; it doesn't really have punch, but it cannot really hypnotise me
either.~ songsoverruins, IkEcht

The cover art for Northern
Valentine’s The Distance Brings Us Closer is an expansive sky/water landscape
photo, a captivating one. It sets up the notion that their music will similarly
stretch out before our ears. And it does. Right from the start this five-piece
instrumental/ambient band from Philadelphia – three electric guitars, one
bass, one keyboard/violin player – builds a big sound filled with atmosphere.
Its static qualities do bring to mind large open spaces. But listen closer.
Because it’s not that static. Even within the first few minutes of that
opening track, “Born Yesterday”, the seemingly peaceful music is busy with
unusual sounds. As the track continues, it gets less peaceful, more ominous
and stormy, without changing all that much. It’s a skill to make music
where so much is happening even when it seems like nothing is happening.Each track was improvised
around a theme, recorded live in the studio. Each has a different feeling,
a different sound even. For a while on “Dies Solis” it’s hard to hear it
as particular instruments, more like one wave of sound. Yet it progresses,
as all of this music does, even when it doesn’t. “Dimanche” strikes me
as carrying more of a film-score atmosphere, and that’s a compliment. A
horror film, a domestic drama, film noir, or a nature documentary; you
decide. “Escaping Light” is eerie too, and airy. There’s quite a sense
of space to the thing. “Already Gone” sums it all up in some way, feeling
more finite though no more conclusive. Northern Valentine does generate
closeness while they emulate distance. They create musical places that
do feel physical, with their own visceral facets, but also open-ended.~ Dave Heaton, Erasing Clouds

If you've stumbled upon this
review with any knowledge whatsoever of Philadelphia's Northern Valentine,
it won't be because they're responsible for that tune that's been stuck
in your head all day. In fact, so downright impenetrable is everything
on latest release The Distance Brings Us Closer that it's fairly unlikely
you'll come across them anywhere unless you're particularly willing to
look. Sadly, it's not worth your trouble. These five tracks run together
so significantly that to comment on them individually is a waste of time.
Call it post-rock, call it experimentalism, but ultimately this is a fifty
minute exercise in lifeless pretentiousness, never offering any more than
knowingly avant-garde atmospherics that lose their appeal in a matter of
seconds. Apparently The Distance Brings Us Closer is largely improvised.
Truth be told, this might serve to explain a lot, as it's genuinely difficult
to imagine such directionless nonsense being premeditated. Avoid.~ Mitch Bain, Rock Midgets

The sprays of fuzz, feedback
and (possibly imagined) overtones created by this husband and wife duo
treads territory familiar to anyone reasonably familiar with shoegaze rock,
especially the stuff that eschews drums completely. Distance marks the
band's fourth LP, with a few EPs and live recordings in-between. Earlier
efforts, per the band's MySpace page, have tribal elements. The lack of
percussion here indicates a common evolutionary process for bands that
produce this sort of trance-like material. "Born Yesterday" launches the
listener gently down the stream-of-consciousness with a full 15 minutes
of rippling static and drone. A short series of sci-fi pulses breaks up
"Dimanche" just after the six-minute mark -- but don't let that jar you.
This is ideal listening for a winter commute when it's not rainy or dark
enough for something more immediate.Reference material: If Seefeel's
colder, cosmic crop-dusting experiments appeal to you, Northern Valentine
will satisfy. And you should probably check out Louis and Bebe Barron's
way-ahead-its-time soundtrack to Forbidden Planet.~ Kris Kendall, The Typing
Monkey

This CD from 2008 offers
46 minutes of haunting atmospheric tuneage.Northern Valentine is husband-and-wife
Robert (on guitar) and Amy Brown (on violin and keyboards). They are joined
by: Jeffrey Bumiller (from Doctor Science and Lunch with Beardo) on guitar,
Marc Carazo on bass, and Ben Fleury-Steiner (from Light of Shipwreck and
owner of Gears of Sand Records) on guitar.Lavish waves of processed
guitars cascade into expansive layers of sound, droney in nature and eerie
in definition. Equally haunting violin only increases the music’s desolate
character.The guitar notes are sustained,
then extended to impossible duration, actualizing lethargic pulsations
of harmonic mien. These infinite structures hang in the air, immutable
in their resolute melancholy, yet the guitars easily fuse with each other
to produce an oscillating temperament.Winding through the mix,
the violin, softly morose in its dire resonance, injects a spectral flavor
to the undulant harmonic flow.These compositions exhibit
an arctic sound that goes beyond chilly to express a spacious quality,
evoking vast regions unsullied by civilization, frozen in a pure example
of liberating nature. While the music is generally ambient, peaks are achieved
and relinquished as the tuneage progresses on its steadfast course.~ Matt Howarth, Sonic Curiosity

Dark, atmospheric, instrumental
ambient music with layered guitars and synths (and no percussion) from
Philadelphia. The dark layered sound is reminiscent of Godspeed You Black
Emperor without the epic climaxes; The composition is more like Eno’s ambient
stuff, slow and steady atmospherics with repeating themes. Start with starred
tracks.1) 14 minutes – dark &
atmospheric layered guitars & synths.2) Repeating ambient synth
theme that builds subtly to the end of the track**3) 8 Minutes - Opens quiet
and subtly builds into dark ambient soundscape.4) Dark Menacing Sounds,
looser composition than some of the other tracks.5) Dark feedbacky guitar
layered with ambient guitars/synths~ Rafe McBride, Zookeeper
Online

Five long, ambient, metallic
drone soundscapes by this Philadelphia husband and wife duo with one of
them clocking in at over 15 minutes. Fans of Seefeel, Silo, Rodelius and
Brian Eno’s ambient work will find this a ripping spin.~ The Big Takeover

Lead by a married couple
from Philadelphia, Northern Valentine glides through definitive icy spells
that are remarkably created by guitars and no post-production. Having already
set a mood by placing a photo from Iceland on the album cover, Amy and
Robert (along with two other guitarists and a bassist) easily evoke any
kind of wintry, arctic imagery. These are also some of the most haunting
ambient sounds put to tape, some of which play like the soundtrack for
a crumbling and crashing ice sheet. Hailing from Philadelphia, Northern
Valentine is a band built around the core of husband and wife duo Robert
(guitar) & Amy Brown (violin, keyboard). Inviting two guitarists (Jeffery
Bumiller and Ben Fleury-Steiner) and a bassist (Marc Carazo) into the fore,
the band adds depth to their ambient post-rock sound which follows the
same aesthetics as Windy&Carl, Netherworld and Biosphere.Like drifting
in a bulbous cloud through a unpopulated, cotton-wool metropolis, Northern
Valentine score the soundtrack to an imaginary Arctic dusk, an image which
is perfectly conveyed by the album art. Across the 5 pieces, elongated
string melodies glide and evaporate in spectral fashion as crisply effervescent
tones occasionally glisten within the drone laden expanse. Themes of glacial
isolation, depressive darkness and ominous paranoia fuse delicately with
a delicate romanticism and the silver lining of optimism in a soundscape
that floats between dense and minimalist textures.Opener ‘Born Yesterday’
is a cinemascope manifestation of ethereal post-ambient music. Like a lingering
nature shot in a Haneke or Coen Brothers film that is riddled with a deep,
emotive undertone, it grips ones mindset through its subtle use of omnipotent
drones and deeply melancholic tone. The album then starts to slowly move
into a regressive lull, especially on the solitary introspection of ‘Dimanche’
which churns subtly with a windswept forlornness. Sounding like The Caretaker
meets The Necks played at 16rpm in the banquet hall of the submerged Titanic,
the delicious sub-aqua, minimalist piano waltz of ‘Escaping Light’ adds
a much anticipated glow to proceedings as glistening melodic droplets lace
a backdrop of warmly buoyant drone. The closer ‘Already Gone’ is the most
post-rockish of the 5 tracks as stretched violin and guitar melodies meander
around each other in ghostly fashion, all-the-while exuding that reflective
and melancholic timbre that poignant post-rock is all about as melodic
arcs resonate with compassionate fervor over a timeless soundscape of drifting
sonic spacedust.Recorded live using a stereo field recorder and without
any post-production or overdubbing, the five-piece improvised off of each
other around planned themes. Thusly, such a process has led to a natural
and spacious soundstage that wrings with an all important warmth. With
all the pieces melding into each other to form an engrossing 45 minute
dreamscape, the emotive cinematic expanse of ‘The Distance Brings Us Closer’
will have you cloud surfing for many enjoyable hours to come.~ Deleted Scenes, Forgotten
Dreams

The driving medium of music
is time. Usually compressed to allow the listener easier access to
interactions, the higher clock speeds and shorter forms lock into reassuringly
predictable patterns. Northern Valentine join a minority of artists
in departing from this formula, taking a longing look at something music
is equally well-suited to: suspending our sense of time. The steady
state is an elusive state, but one that sits just over the horizon of the
appropriately pelagic region mapped out by The Distance Brings Us Closer.
The five pieces are laconic, discrete layers of processed guitars, keyboards
& violins, added for timbral authenticity. The envelopes are
all marshland soft, with virtually no hard attacks occuring anywhere.
"Dies Solis" ("Days of Sun"), followed by the piece "Dimanche" ("Sunday,"
implying some relation) typifies the interestingly segregated structures
used here, isolating voices according to frequency range & then looping
them at uniform but staggered intervals. The long-delayed, lockstep
recurrences produce an odd dilating effect, with details coming in &
out of range in the best vertical music tradition. NV is usually
frank about their loops, with few instances of concealment, enrichment,
or other sleight of hand, revealing a simplicity that is at times admirable
& at others perhaps too familiar in presentation. The timbral
palette is mostly thin, dishwater-colored, & gratefully dissonant in
many places, adding some appreciated pathos. The Distance Brings
Us Closer is not perfect, but it does offer glimpses of what in time should
become more profound & genuinely enveloping work.~ K Leimer, Expose